World Cup Afterthoughts

The best goal of the tournament? Without doubt Fabio Grosso's 119th-minute opener against Germany in the semi-final. There may be a couple of more fiercely-struck shots in the tournament, like Torsten Frings' goal against Costa Rica, and more immaculately placed shots, like Joe Cole's lob against Sweden, yet when you take into the account its importance and the time it was scored, Grosso's left-footed curling shot was not only the best goal, but also the most important one.

...

Portuguese goalkeeper Ricardo might have made history by saving three penalty kicks in the penalty shootout against England. Yet if you watch closely, you will see that in fact he is one of the luckiest guy in the world.

Like many other shot stoppers, including his opposite number on the day, England's Paul Robinson, Ricardo employed a left-right-left-right tactic in an attempt to save the penalties. Meanwhile, the England players (Frank Lampard, Owen Hargreaves, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher) decided to place their penalty kicks to Ricardo's left, right, left and right hand side, in that order, respectively. On the other hand though, despite employing the same tactic, Robinson didn't even touch the ball.

...

Speaking of Portugal, the "Most Entertaining Team" award winner ...

After they have scored in the 24th minute of their final Group D match against Mexico, they had scored exactly ONE goal (against the Netherlands in the round of 16) in the next 454 minutes (a spell of over 5 matches, including 30 minutes of extra-time against England), until they scored a consolation goal in the 88th minute in the third-place playoff against Germany.

To be fair, they conceded ONLY 5 goals during these 454 minutes (slightly less than a goal per match). But the last time I checked, only three other teams had scored one goal or less during the entire tournament:

Trinidad & Tobago (No goal scored)
Angola (1 goal scored)
Togo (1 goal scored)

And they all played three matches only.

And they all were eliminated in the group stage.

If that's the quality the most entertaining team should possess, why shouldn't Angola win the award? At least they have a player (Akwa) who tried desperately to score acrobatically match after match.